


A May/Garner Ficlet Collection

by alessandralee



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Ficlet
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-06
Updated: 2015-10-15
Packaged: 2018-04-25 02:05:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4942534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alessandralee/pseuds/alessandralee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of my shorter May/Garner fics. Currently untitled.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. "Pull over."

It’s a habit, she just slides into the driver’s seat the same way she slides the gun into the waistband of her jeans.

She’s an agent; she’s the pilot.

If she asked him, he’d probably say she craves control after one too many situations where she couldn’t have it.

Or maybe he’d just smile and tell her he’s off the clock as he slides into the passenger seat.

They don’t talk about the heavy stuff for days. They’re still feeling each other out, still trying to see what’s different.

If they make it through casual conversation, they have a better chance of actually having a discussion about Bahrain, or the divorce, or any of the multitude of topics they deftly avoid.

She steers them down back roads and along highways, but only spends ten minutes on Route 66. They drove that once, before they were even engaged. It’s a sore spot she doesn’t want to push.

They sleep in comfortable, clean chain hotels, sometimes even in the same bed, sometimes even wrapped around each other naked body.

It starts to feel more relaxed. They reminisce about the night she first introduced him to her parents. They laugh. It doesn’t hurt at all to remember how good it was.

They take their time in Sedona; she feels relaxed when she gets behind the wheel again after dinner.

So relaxed that, a few hours later, in the middle of nowhere, Arizona, she actually feels kind of tired.

She can power through easily, she’s not that out of practice. She can go days without sleep if necessary.

But he turns down the radio (his ability to find NPR is uncanny, and a bit annoying) and says, “Pull over. Let me drive for a while.”

She bristles for a moment, looks at him out of the corner of her eye.

He looks concerned (he always looks concerned when it comes to her). 

He looks awake.

She decides this is a safe enough place to pull over for a few minutes. She has no plans of moving from her seat, though.

He unbuckles his seatbelt, calmly steps out to stretch.

“This does not mean you get to drive tomorrow,” she says out her open window. 

He’s a vigilant observer of the speed limit. When she can watch the rest of the world trickle by, that will annoy her.

“The fast you get out, the faster we can get to civilization,” he tells her.

She’s comfortably asleep in the passenger’s seat before the signs for the next exit appear.


	2. Mini Golf

Andrew doesn’t say anything when she gets a hole-in-one on the first hole; he just smiles and sets up his own powder blue golf ball on the mat.

It takes him three tries to get it in, and he seems kind of impressed with himself.

Maybe, when he asked her out, she should have mentioned she was on the gold team in high school. It’s a hobby she doesn’t get to indulge very often, but every now and then she finds a way to sneak off and unwind on the course after a particularly rough mission.

Melinda has always been competitive, but she has a sneaking feeling the only person she’ll be competing against tonight is herself.

That suspicion is confirmed when it takes him four swings to make it through the rolling hills of the second hole. A large stuffed parrot glares down condescendingly from a branch of a fake palm tree.

“I’m a little rusty,” he tells her. “Also, terrible.”

She can’t help but smile at his admission. She works in a high-pressure environment; it’s rare to find a field agent who can laugh at himself.

So this shrink, with his calm demeanor and easy laughter, is something of an anomaly.

She kind of likes it.

Six holes in, and she tries to give him pointers, after they’ve stopped to let a group of four men in their seventies pass them. He improves marginally.

On the ninth hole, the ball jumps the course and plops into a nearby water feature. They both chuckle as he leans over to pull it out.

That laughter multiplies when he pulls his hand out, only to see the whites of his fingernails have been dyed blue like the water.

“That cannot be sanitary,” he mutters.

She likes the way he just wipes his hand on another fake plant and moves on.

By the time they reach the requisite windmill, a little out of place given the pirate theme of the course, they’ve completely stopped keeping score. It was getting too embarrassing.

That’s about the time his luck kick’s in, and it only takes him two shots to get the ball in the hole.

It takes Melinda three.

“What can I say, we can’t all be golf prodigies,” he teases as she sets up the final shot.

“You’ve certainly proven that,” she retorts.

In the end, they return their balls and clubs, and she waits while he finally washes the blue dye off of his hand.

“I don’t know about you,” he says when he reemerges from the bathroom, “but I could definitely use a drink to take the edge off of my horrible defeat.”

Melinda smiles, “As long as the loser’s buying.”


End file.
